Chapter 3 - The Child They Had Planned For
"Who is K-17?"
I asked Roman the question three times.
He answered only after Malik left to bring Dana Wells upstairs under guard.
"I don't know."
"You know something."
"I know the numbering means there was more than one file."
"Pregnancy file?"
"Possibly."
"Child?"
"Possibly."
"Stop saying possibly."
My voice rose for the first time.
My daughter startled.
Instant guilt crushed the anger.
I whispered against her forehead.
"I'm sorry. Mama's sorry."
Roman lowered his voice too.
"The ledger had seventeen entries."
I stared at him.
"Seventeen?"
"Most weren't names. Just codes."
"K-1 through K-17?"
"Yes."
"And K-18 didn't exist?"
"Not when I saw it."
I looked at my daughter's replacement bracelet.
Someone had expected her birth strongly enough to add another number.
"How old was the ledger?"
"At least twelve years."
"What was being acquired?"
"Biological samples. Fertility data. embryo-storage agreements. Genetic screening."
I felt nauseated.
"Kingsley Holdings doesn't own fertility clinics."
"Not publicly."
"Roman."
"It owns investment funds. Those funds own medical networks."
Every wealthy family had private healthcare.
That wasn't surprising.
This was different.
"Why would Arthur track pregnancies?"
Roman looked at me.
"That's what I've been trying to find out."
The hospital door opened.
Dana Wells entered between Malik and another security officer.
She no longer wore scrubs.
Someone had given her a gray sweatshirt.
Without the nurse costume, I recognized her immediately.
"Dana."
Her eyes filled with tears when she saw me.
"Mrs. Kingsley."
"Hart."
"I'm sorry."
"Did you touch my baby?"
She looked down.
"Dana."
"Yes."
Roman moved one step forward.
She recoiled.
I lifted a hand.
"Let me."
He stopped.
"Dana, why did you replace her bracelet?"
"I was told to."
"By Arthur?"
Her eyes flickered.
That was enough.
"Who told you?"
She swallowed.
"I can't say."
"You entered my hospital room under a false identity."
"I never meant to hurt her."
"Then what did you mean to do?"
"Verify."
"Verify what?"
She started crying.
Roman said coldly, "This is the part where you decide whether you're more afraid of Arthur Kingsley or me."
"Roman."
He looked at me.
I understood his tactic.
I hated it.
But Dana answered.
"The birthmark."
I looked at my daughter instinctively.
"What birthmark?"
Dana pointed weakly.
"Her shoulder."
I shifted the blanket.
On my daughter's left shoulder blade was a faint reddish mark.
Small.
Curved.
I had noticed it.
I hadn't cared.
"Why?"
Dana closed her eyes.
"The Kingsley women have it."
My blood chilled.
"What?"
"Not all. But enough."
"That's ridiculous."
"It's in the family records."
Roman asked, "What records?"
Dana shook her head.
"I don't know everything."
"What do you know?"
"I worked for Mr. Kingsley thirteen years."
"Doing what?"
"Household. Then private medical coordination."
"For Arthur?"
"Yes."
She looked at me.
"You weren't supposed to get pregnant."
My pulse thudded.
"Because I was infertile?"
Dana's silence was unbearable.
I leaned forward.
"Was I infertile?"
"No."
The word landed with almost no sound.
It destroyed six years of my life.
I remembered injections.
Tests.
Procedures.
Appointments where doctors discussed me as though my body were a failed machine.
I remembered Grant holding me while I cried in our bathroom.
I remembered apologizing to him.
Apologizing.
For something that hadn't been true.
"Say it again."
Dana cried harder.
"You weren't infertile."
Roman's hand touched the bed rail.
Not me.
Close enough.
"Why did Dr. Moss tell us I was?"
Dana looked toward the door.
"Because Arthur paid him."
My throat closed.
"Why?"
"He didn't approve of you carrying the Kingsley line."
My thoughts fractured.
"Because I wasn't wealthy enough?"
"No."
"My family wasn't powerful enough?"
"No."
"Then why?"
Dana stared at me with genuine fear.
"Because of your mother."
My mother had died when I was nineteen.
A school librarian in Connecticut.
Quiet.
Funny.
The least threatening person I'd ever known.
"What does my mother have to do with Arthur Kingsley?"
Dana whispered, "Everything."
Before I could ask more, Roman's phone rang.
He glanced at it.
His expression sharpened.
"Grant."
He answered.
"What?"
Grant's voice came through loudly.
"I'm coming to the hospital."
"No."
"She's my daughter."
"You don't know that legally."
"I know the dates."
"Dates aren't paternity tests."
"I don't care."
"You should."
I reached for the phone.
Roman gave it to me.
"Grant."
"Lillian."
He sounded different now.
No smugness.
No wedding bells.
"Are you safe?"
I almost laughed.
"Interesting question."
"Roman said—"
"I know what Roman said."
"Did someone threaten you?"
"Your father's employee entered my room under fake credentials and changed our daughter's hospital bracelet."
Grant went silent.
"Our daughter," he repeated.
"Focus."
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
He exhaled.
"The wedding is postponed."
I blinked.
Across from me, Dana closed her eyes.
"Why?"
"Because my father knew about your pregnancy."
"What?"
"He didn't admit it, but he knew."
Roman stepped closer.
Grant continued.
"And Evelyn knew something too."
"What?"
"She said I'd told her father there could never be an heir through you."
"Didn't you?"
"No."
I frowned.
"You didn't tell Senator Shaw?"
"I told Evelyn about the diagnosis. I never discussed heirs with her father."
"So somebody did."
"Yes."
"Your father."
"I think so."
Roman spoke.
"Ask him who K-17 is."
"I did."
"And?"
Grant hesitated.
"He said it was none of my concern."
Roman's face changed.
"That means K-17 is alive."
Dana suddenly gasped.
We all turned.
Roman looked at her.
"You know."
She backed toward the wall.
"I can't."
"You know who K-17 is."
"Please."
I said, "Dana."
Her eyes met mine.
"It's a boy."
Nobody spoke.
"How old?"
"Six."
My heart pounded.
"Whose boy?"
Dana's mouth trembled.
"I don't know."
"You're lying."
"I never saw his file."
"But you know he exists."
"Yes."
Grant's voice crackled through the phone.
"What boy?"
Dana glanced at the phone.
Then at my daughter.
"Arthur called him the contingency."
I felt sick.
Grant demanded, "What contingency?"
Dana pressed both hands over her face.
Roman leaned close.
"Answer."
She lowered her hands.
"A Kingsley heir."
Grant went silent.
So did I.
"That isn't possible," he said.
Roman replied, "Apparently it is."
Grant's voice rose.
"I don't have a son."
Dana whispered, "Maybe you do."
The sentence emptied the room.
Grant said, "Who are you?"
"Dana Wells."
"You worked for my father."
"Yes."
"Are you saying I have another child?"
"I don't know whose biological material they used."
"Whose material?"
Dana shook her head rapidly.
"This isn't how I was supposed to—"
Roman stepped between her and the door.
"You aren't leaving."
She looked trapped.
"Arthur will destroy me."
"Arthur doesn't control this room."
"You don't understand him."
Roman gave a cold smile.
"I understand him better than you think."
That statement caught my attention.
"How?"
Roman didn't answer.
Grant did.
"Because Vale's father worked for mine."
I stared at Roman.
"What?"
Roman's eyes remained on Dana.
Grant continued.
"Ask Roman why his father disappeared twenty-two years ago."
"Grant," Roman warned.
"No. You want secrets? Let's have all of them."
I looked between the phone and Roman.
"Your father knew Arthur?"
Roman finally turned.
"Yes."
"How?"
"He handled private security."
"For Kingsley?"
"For several families."
"What happened?"
"Not now."
Grant said bitterly, "Convenient."
Roman grabbed the phone.
"You want to come here? Come. But leave your father behind."
"You don't give me orders."
"If Arthur shows up, neither you nor he gets near the baby."
"My baby."
Roman's eyes hardened.
"Lillian's baby."
For once, Grant didn't argue.
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
The call ended.
I stared at Roman.
"Your father."
He looked toward the window.
"His name was Dominic Vale."
"What happened to him?"
"He vanished."
"And Arthur was involved?"
"I've spent twenty-two years trying to prove it."
The meaning settled slowly.
"You didn't find me by accident."
"No."
"You weren't investigating me because you cared about me."
His expression tightened.
"At first?"
He didn't lie.
"No."
Pain flashed through me.
Ridiculous pain.
Roman had never promised me anything.
Yet I'd trusted him.
"At first," he repeated, "you were connected to a Kingsley medical payment that matched transactions from the year my father disappeared."
"What changed?"
His eyes moved to the baby.
"Everything."
I wanted to believe him.
That frightened me most.
Malik opened the door.
"Roman."
"What?"
"We've got a problem."
"What kind?"
"Grant Kingsley is downstairs."
"That's not a problem."
"He's not alone."
I knew.
"Arthur?"
Malik shook his head.
"Senator Shaw."
Roman swore.
Grant entered the maternity floor five minutes later without his tuxedo jacket.
His bow tie was gone.
He looked like a groom who had walked out of his own wedding.
Behind him came Senator Malcolm Shaw.
And Evelyn.
Still wearing her wedding dress.
My daughter stirred in my arms.
Grant stopped when he saw her.
All anger left his face.
For one naked second, Grant Kingsley was simply a man looking at his child.
His eyes filled.
"Lillian."
I said nothing.
He took one step.
Roman blocked him.
Grant looked at Roman's chest.
Then up.
"Move."
"No."
"Roman."
"Ask permission."
Grant's jaw tightened.
Then he looked at me.
"Can I see her?"
I hated that my heart hurt.
I nodded.
Roman stepped aside.
Grant approached slowly.
He stared at the baby.
"She's tiny."
"Seven pounds, one ounce."
A laugh escaped him.
Broken.
Beautiful.
Then he looked at me.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
I wanted to answer.
Evelyn answered first.
"Because your father would have taken her."
Everyone turned.
Grant's face changed.
"Evelyn?"
She stepped into the room.
Her bouquet was gone.
Mascara darkened the skin beneath one eye.
"My father and Arthur made an agreement before our engagement."
Senator Shaw said sharply, "Enough."
"No."
Evelyn turned on him.
"You told me it was estate planning."
Grant stared at her.
"What agreement?"
Evelyn began crying.
"A child."
I pulled my daughter closer.
"What about a child?"
"If I married Grant and couldn't conceive naturally within twelve months, there was already an embryo."
Grant went white.
"What embryo?"
Evelyn looked at Dana.
Dana whispered, "K-17."
Roman said, "Whose embryo?"
Nobody answered.
Then Senator Shaw stepped forward.
"This conversation ends now."
Roman moved between him and the bed.
"No."
Shaw looked at him with disgust.
"You have no idea what you're interfering with."
Roman smiled faintly.
"I've been waiting twenty-two years to interfere."
The senator's face changed.
He recognized something in Roman's expression.
"Dominic's son."
Roman went still.
Shaw had said too much.
"Where is K-17?" Roman asked.
Shaw turned away.
Grant blocked him.
"You're not leaving."
"Move."
"Where is the boy?"
Shaw stared at Grant.
Then looked at the baby in my arms.
His voice dropped.
"You should be more concerned about K-18."
I felt the room contract.
"What does that mean?" I demanded.
Shaw said nothing.
Roman grabbed his arm.
"What happens to K-18?"
The senator looked down at Roman's hand.
Then at me.
"The same thing that happened to the woman who tried to expose K-17."
My breath caught.
"What woman?"
He almost smiled.
"Lillian's mother."
Everything inside me stopped.
May you like
My mother had not died from the highway accident I'd been told about.
And Senator Shaw knew exactly what had happened to her.
